Disclaimer: Vincent is a man with a gun. You think I'm going to try and steal him?

A/N: Okay, people, this is winding down...yes, I have a sequel in mind but in the meanwhile, there's a good fanfic you should be reading out there by Winged Seraph called "Effigy." She polished it up and it's all sparkly and neat and waiting for your reviews, so I use my "Vincent's intense stare power" to command you to go read it. And leave a review.

Special thanks to Dawnie-7 for returning Vincent's shirt. Although he did look pretty good without it. He he. Thanks to my loyal reviewers, I hope to hear from you at least a couple more times before this strand must end...and a new one begin!

Chapter Nine: Why Haven't You Killed Me?

Vincent watched her, suddenly unsure. It was the first time in the evening that he hadn't been sure about her. It was an unsteady feeling, one he didn't care for at all.

Gently, he leaned forward, toward the rise of the front seat that divided them. The plastic barrier was wide open in the middle, more than enough room for him to reach through. He slid his opposing hand over and touched her hair.

She stiffened. Not so unusual, being female she had a natural inclination to distrust any man who tried to touch her. But their earlier intimacy hadn't been forgotten, at least not by him, and she was in no position to push him away.

"Head downtown," he said softly, close to the back of her head.

"What's downtown?" He almost smirked, but she could see him in the mirror. A smirk would ruin the moment. The tremor of her voice told him plainly that the physical contact was working. Just like it had always worked.

"Don't worry about it. Just drive." He kept his tone mellow, soothing, and he moved his hand deeper into the thick mass of her hair. God, it was so soft. He'd forgotten how good a woman's hair could feel against his scarred fingers. The tips of his fingers just touched the nape of her neck.

She bridled. Her shoulders rose almost imperceptibly, putting the smallest barrier between them. Then, as if the effort to speak were tremendous, she said, "Don't touch me."

The corner of his mouth quirked into a nearly teasing smile. "Look, you've had a rough night, I know. I've put you through hell, but you've come through, you know?"

A little louder. "Don't touch me."

"You need to relax. It's almost over."

Her eyes darted up into the mirror to meet his. He was amazed at the depths of rage he saw there. "Yeah, I'm sure it is," she snapped.

Shaking his head, he leaned closer to her. "Come on, Callie, get with it. Millions of galaxies, hundreds of millions of stars, and a speck on one in a blink…that's us, lost in space. You, me…what do either of us really matter? Why not just enjoy the moment we have? Because it's all we have, trust me."

"All I have? So when this ride is over, so am I, right?" Blazing now, he'd forgotten what color her eyes were, but now they were nearly black in the shadows, two glittering onyx staring fire at him.

"What makes you say that?"

She sighed, as if impatient with him. "Come on, Vincent, I'm not stupid. You've killed everyone else you've met tonight. After number five comes number six. That's me, right?"

He swallowed. No, this was coming apart. He was tempted to tell her that of course that wasn't true, he wouldn't hurt her…but the fact that it wasn't a lie was what stopped him. Startled at himself, he pulled back his hand.

She had pinned him now, with those eyes. "You know, I probably deserve it, you know? Being so incredibly stupid. I mean, right now, I feel like the most stupid person on the planet."

"Why?"

"What I said to you before was all true. All of it. You've been playing me from minute one. The charming smile, the seductive attitude. All of it was pure manipulation. Because you don't feel anything. You don't care one speck about any human being on this planet." She narrowed her eyes, her teeth showing with the venom of the last words. "Not even yourself."

He backed away, deflating slightly against the back seat. His eyes slid away from her, unable to take that gaze any longer. What's wrong with you? Snap out of it!

She drew a breath, then let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "God, how could I? I mean, I go to school, I study this, and yet a live field experience lands in my lap and I fall in like some dumb cheerleader who doesn't know her boobs from her ass. You're so typical, and boring, do you know that? I mean, daytime T.V. creates more imaginative hit-men than you. But you, you're just a machine, pressing buttons on other machines. Pressing my buttons, and idiot that I am, I let you. But you don't feel anything, do you? You probably don't even know what the word means. Sure, you can read people, figure them out, but their hearts are just empty spaces on your radar, because you don't have one. No human being could murder another human being if they had a single clue as to what they really were."

She stopped, stunned by the silence in the back of her cab. She looked at him again, saw him listening, saw his numb look. In sadistic – and perhaps masochistic – enthusiasm, she plodded on.

"So let me guess…Daddy beat you up, Momma ran out on you, you were isolated and alone, wound up in some juvie hall somewhere, where you learned the law of the jungle, eat or be eaten? Keep the bad things away by never letting anything in? Destroy anything you touch before it touches you? How long was it before you realized you were a walking corpse? Anybody home?"

She snorted, looked away. "You think you're this bad-ass sociopath and it's all just a façade. Just like your expensive suit and silver-fox hair. It's almost enough to make me feel sorry for you, you low….just…low." Stumbling on her words, feeling something catch in her throat, she looked out the window. "I don't know why the hell you haven't killed me yet. But don't think for a second that I don't know that's how all of this is going to end. So don't, for one second, try to play it sweet on me. At least give me the dignity of knowing better than to fall for that transparent shit."

Silence. Slowly, so slowly, Vincent pulled his head straight onto his shoulders, not realizing that it had been unsteady until that moment. "Next time I come to L.A.," he quipped, "I'm going to have to remember never to get into the cab of a little college girl who thinks she's already a shrink."

"Fuck you," she snapped.

"Fuck me?" He arched an eyebrow, feeling the anger starting to boil, sliding up his throat like bile. "Yeah, that is what you wanted to do, isn't it? I mean, why else would you have let yourself be used like that? Isn't that the classic, bad-boy complex your daddy was talking about?"

"Leave him out of this," she hissed.

"Why not? He's the reason you have it. No man in this world will ever be as good or noble as your father, or even your brother, so why try? Instead, play the other side of the street, that way you know how everything is going to end. Well, don't get pissed at me if that little complex of yours gets you into trouble, it you hadn't been such a coward to find yourself someone who was good enough for you. If they even exist."

She blinked. Hell, why had that barb stuck so hard? It was pure defense, pure table-turning and she was falling for it, like the idiot she felt like at that moment.

"One day, you'll be thanking me, Callie," Vincent went on, finding his tone of disdain and scorn that made her nearly want to cry. "You'll remember me as the one man who didn't let you walk away without giving you what you asked for."

"I never asked for you!" she shrieked, hitting the accelerator. Vincent's head snapped back as the sudden G's came upon him, and she swerved the car to make a heavy, ugly right turn.

"Fucking savior complex, Stockholm syndrome, whatever the hell…I could have risked it any time I wanted to…"

She was rambling now, almost laughing, as the near-deserted late-night streets of L.A. became her own personal racing track.

"Red light!" Vincent said, attempting to keep his cool, but she heard the panic, reveled in it as she sped right through, the accelerator now going north of sixty.

"But new news!" she mocked, looking up at him, taking her eyes off the road in a moment of reckless glee. "This moment is all we have, right? May as well make the best of it!"

The tires screamed against the pavement as she made another turn, nearly lifting half the car off the road. It slammed back down, jolting them both, and to Vincent's utter amazement, she started to laugh.

Not just laugh. Giggle hysterically, that was more like it.

"What the hell do I have to lose, anyway?" she roared as the engine screamed around them.

Vincent reached for his gun, pulled it out, pointed it at her temple. "Slow down!" he ordered.

She looked at him, and it was plain to see that she didn't buy it for a second. "What, you going to pull the trigger and kill us? Go ahead, I dare you, Mr. I Don't Have A Fucking Clue What Anyone Else Is Thinking! Go ahead and call my bluff!"

Another sharp turn. Vincent almost lost hold of his pistol. "I said, slow the hell down!" he said again, a bit more loudly.

"Lost in space…trust me, I'm not lost anywhere, not in this city. But you can go ahead and fly away any time, be my guest, if you think you can hide your ass from the entire L.A.P.D!"

The road had straightened out ahead of them. There were cars lined on each side, the road a bit narrower than the others. She had turned off onto a side street, the debris making her speed that much more dangerous. "SLOW DOWN!" Vincent barked, the fear now showing on his face. Callie smiled in smug triumph.

"You were right, Vincent," she said, her eyes landing on a large truck, abandoned where it had broken down in an empty lot, "my brother is my hero. He's coming to save me. Who's going to save you?"

Then she spun the wheel. The front of the car barely missed the truck, but the side glanced off, bouncing as if the metal had been turned into rubber. The car whirled around in a full 360 degree angle, going across the street to slap hard into other cars parked there. Finally, the right front fender slammed hard into a large dumpster, killing the taxi's engine and bringing them both to an abrupt stop.

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Callie opened her eyes. She was looking right into a street light, flickering on and off, and the glare hurt. She reached up with a hand to ward it off, only to find someone else had beaten her to it.

"So you're alive," came Vincent's voice. "I was wondering there for a second."

His powerful grasp snaked around her forearm and yanked her upwards. Her door had come off in the crash and part of the roof of the cab had been pulled away, so it was like lifting a sardine out of a freshly peeled can. She found herself unsteady on her feet in the middle of the street.

Head spinning and stomach churning, she struggled to keep from barfing then and there on his shoes. But sure enough, Vincent was right there, in front of her, looking at her with an equal mixture of utter annoyance and reluctant respect. There were cuts on his face, skin scraped off his knuckles, and no doubt his suit was ripped in various places, but he was alive and relatively unhurt.

She blinked, letting her vision clear. It felt so quiet and strange around them, deserted. Vincent was looking around, nearly laughing. "What did I tell you?" he was saying. "Nobody notices anything in this town."

She looked around her, at the distant lights of moving cars, straining her ears for the sound of a police siren. Surely someone had seen their wreck. Someone had to have called the cops. Where was Ray? Hadn't he caught up to them by then?

Vincent grabbed her wrist, yanking her along with him. "Come on, Speed-racer, let's go, the night isn't over yet."

Mercilessly, he dragged her through the streets, finding ways through alleys, going through places she would never had set foot inside on her own, but he trodded fearlessly. Her head felt fuzzy and her mouth had a strange taste in it – it took two fingers and her tongue for her to realize that she had bitten something pretty badly and it was blood that she tasted. Her lip, and something else, something on the inside of her cheek.

"Let…let me go," she murmured weakly, his momentum causing her steps to become stumbled and uneven.

"No way," he said. "You fucked this up, now you're going to fix it."

"Fucked what up?" she moaned. "How in the hell can I fix anything? My cab is wrecked. You don't need me anymore, just shoot me or let me go!"

He stopped, letting go of her. She almost fell to the ground, her legs nearly giving out under her, but she didn't. She stood there, swaying in the night breeze like a scarecrow, all arms and legs. When she was able to raise her head, she realized she was staring down the barrel of his gun.

"You want to die?" he asked her.

She just looked back at him. The trauma, the shock, the adrenaline, the apathy, all came crashing at once. She was going to faint, that's what was going to happen, she was going to…

There. Sirens. Vincent's eyes jerked up and his gun withdrew just the slightest. Then, holstering it, he lunged for her and tossed her over his shoulder, then took off at a dead run down the next alley. The movement made the world swim and her hair blocked her vision of everything save Vincent's legs. How in the hell he was able to carry her and run so fast, she didn't have the foggiest, but it didn't seem to matter, as it was happening, it was real. How long he went, she didn't know, but the world browned in and out several times before he stopped and set her on her feet, his hands firm on her shoulders before he propped her up against a wall.

She slid down, nearly on her backside. She started to cough, the saliva in her throat slipping down the wrong pipe and choking her. Vincent had knelt down and was rummaging through something. She realized as her cough cleared that it was his briefcase.

"Justice building," he said, more to himself than to her. "Just a few blocks that way. Get on your feet." He snapped the briefcase shut and seized her hand, and she was forced to run alongside him for two blocks before they came to a large building

A building she recognized from earlier that night. The building where she had picked him up.

Vincent reached to his waist for something, and she realized he had a very large tangle of keys and cards hanging there. One card went through a security strip and the door popped open, but the guard sitting at the stand inside didn't seem to happy to see a man coming in, dragging a half-struggling girl behind him.

Vincent shot him without blinking. Callie screamed, jerked, her adrenaline returning.

"Move!" Vincent snarked at her, giving her a particularly brutal yank. He dragged them both through another security-cleared turnstile and then headed for the elevator. There, she was allowed to slink into the corner and catch her breath.

"What…what are you…going to do with me?" she managed to direct at his back as he watched the numbers light up for the floors.

"Shut up," he snapped. The elevator came to a stop, and Vincent turned to her, grasping her by the hair on the back of her neck. She squealed in surprise and then pain, but had no choice but to move her feet as he propelled her now in front of him, into the hallway, toward an office door.

Behind her, his foot snaked out and kicked down the door, the gun pointed into the room

Which was empty.

Callie's eyes settled on the plaque just outside the door. Two names appeared, but it was the title that caught her eye.

District prosecutors.

Vincent shoved her into the room, tossing her down into a chair. He took something from his briefcase and dropped it onto the floor, temporarily abandoned.

"Get on the floor," he ordered.

She looked up at him, still confused, and realized that her hesitation had come at the worst possible moment. Brutally, Vincent seized hold of her by the collar of her jacket and yanked her across the room, then kicked her feet out from under her, causing her to land in a heap at the foot of the desk, right by one of the legs. The back of her head jerked with the movement and smacked into the hard wooden edge, and the pain made her vision temporarily swim. Taking advantage of her swoon, Vincent grabbed both her wrists and she felt something thick and plastic loop around them, then pull painfully tight.

He left her there to investigate the vacated desks, one of them having been recently occupied, if the smell of Chinese food coming from the white plastic boxes was to be believed. Callie was amazed to realize that the smell actually made her hungry.

She could hear him kick at the chair and it slid across the floor, banging into the window. Then there was silence. Whatever he was doing, it couldn't be good. Callie felt the flesh on her arms begin to crawl, her muscles ache with the strain of being pulled so tightly behind her. He stepped quietly, back and forth, his stare on the desk. She couldn't see him, but she could picture it, and it frightened her how clear the picture was.

Then, abruptly, he came around the desk, heading toward the door.

"Where are you going!" she shrieked, not sure if she was more freaked out at him leaving, or her being left behind.

"Upstairs," was all he said, and then he was gone.

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Annie Farrell sat in the law library. She liked working here, it gave her access to anything she needed.

It was a routine, that's what it was. It was the night before a big case, and this was her way of dealing with it. Sure, she loved her job, but it wasn't the easiest job. She represented the department of Justice. The fear that she was just running a charade all these years pressed upon her each time a new case started. The terror that her exhibits weren't in order and her opening statement was going to fall flat at the most important point was enough to induce her to a bout of tears, but those had passed about four hours ago. Now she was in her zone, reworking her exhibits, rewriting her opening statement, and she would stay at it until sleep finally demanded she doze for about an hour, and then the day would start, the trail would begin, and she'd be fine.

The telephone was ringing.

She didn't hear it at first. Her brain was so wrapped up in her statement that she was murmuring around loud to herself – which was fine, considering she was very much alone – and not even tuned in to outside noise. The building made enough noise to get attention to anyone who wasn't familiar with it – that was the way of these L.A. skyscrapers, the way they settled during the night, it was enough to convince a skittish person that the place was haunted. It didn't bother her. She liked the noise. She liked the feeling.

The phone was just ringing and ringing and ringing.

She looked down at it, slowly coming out of her work haze, and frowned. Who in the hell could be calling? More than likely it was a wrong number. She decided to let it pass.

Then the thought of Max floated past her. He'd run through her head each time she'd come up for air, and now was not an exception. No, there was no way he was calling her, not at this strange hour.

Dammit, the phone would not stop ringing. Finally, she picked it up. "U.S. Attorney's Office," she said, her professional voice sounding strange to her own ears at this extremely late hour.

"Annie Farrell?" came an unfamiliar voice.

"Yes?" she scowled.

"This is Detective Ray Fanning, L.A.P.D. narcotics. I'm here with Agent Pedrosa of the F.B.I. He instructed me to call you and inform you that you're in danger."

She scowled. Pedrosa was her Fed, the guy who was bringing her everything for the case. Some days she wasn't sure if he worked for her, or if she worked for him. But in spite of his pompous-ass attitude, the guy was good at what he did. "What? What are you talking about? Is this a joke?"

"No, ma'am," came Fanning's voice, dead calm and serious. He had the sort of confidence that took the edge off the fear that would have started creeping up her throat, but Annie wasn't the sort of woman who scared easily. The two times someone had attempted to mug her, she'd sent stiletto heels through their feet and neither one had walked again without thinking of her. "I'm going to be straight with you, ma'am. There have been four executions tonight of the witnesses against Felix Reyes Torrena. A hit man that Felix hired may possibly be coming your way."

"My witnesses? What's going on? What do you know about my case?"

"Enough to know that you're in danger. We have a squad headed your way, so don't—"

Just then the entire building went black.

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Callie felt the throbbing in the back of her head where it had smacked into the desk. She wished she could rub it, not that it would actually do any physical good, but psychologically it might make the pain recess a bit.

Instinctively, she started to tug at the plastic strips that bound her. The kind of plastic strips used to bind packages in post offices, she was sure. The stuff had some give…if she could just get it to stretch far enough to slip her hands through

A few minutes of that and the numbness in her fingers where the circulation was starting to get cut off was enough to clear that delusion. No, the only way she could get out of this was if she could somehow lift up the desk…

That was stupid. This thing was made of a combination of oak and steel, and when she tried to stand herself up, the weight was tremendous. She cursed herself for not being more faithful to a work-out program, like Ray had always suggested. You want to be in a cop's line of work, you gotta be fit. No time like the present, Opie.

Opie. He would call her Opie when he was teasing her. She hadn't though of that in a while. Like that kid on Andy Griffith, who grew up to become Ron Howard, director extraordinaire. Maybe someday, he would make a movie about this night…

If she lived to tell about it.

Vincent should have shot her by now, of that she was dead certain. Maybe he hadn't done it on the street so as to not leave a body in the open. He'd been particularly conscious about that, she reminded herself, thinking back to the two kids he'd shot in the alley. But now that they were inside, she should be dead.

But instead, he'd tied her up.

Bloody hell if she was just going to sit here and wait for him to come back. Getting her feet under her in a heavy squat, she started to pull upward.

This wasn't going to work. She could get the desk off the ground, but she couldn't get her hands out from under the chair leg. Somehow, she had to prop up the desk and slide her hands out at the same time, but that was impossible

Unless she was able to topple the desk.

Taking several deep breaths, using the last bits of strength she had, she lifted. She strained and pushed and yanked, knowing she just had to get the desk to tip so far and then gravity would take care of the rest.

No, this wasn't working, the desk was at an angle and she couldn't get enough weight behind her. Unless she threw herself against the desk. Maybe that would work—

Her wrists were going to be bruised and purple for a week, of that she was certain, when she felt the first ugly yank of her first failure. Steeling herself, blocking out the pain and amazed at her ability to do so, she tried again, this time turning herself so that the desk moved up, both front legs at once, long ways back, and then lifted up her foot to push against the bottom, which she was just able to reach.

There was a thud and a jerk as she toppled, her back landing against the smooth wood and her feet in the air over her head.

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Annie looked around the office, wondering what in the hell could be going on. The phone was dead, and this was just all too creepy. She didn't know whether to shove aside her disbelief or to embrace it in the hopes that all of this was just going to be a dream.

But no, she was awake, her heart was pounding, and the lights from outside gave everything a muted, green glow. Her eyes adjusted slowly, and focused on the largest source of light there was, the large glass wall through which the emergency lights glowed

And a silhouette of a figure appeared, hands together in front of him, holding something that her imagination told her had to be a gun.

She ducked down behind the desk, and watched.

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Bloody hell, she'd done it! Sliding forward, Callie's hands slipped easily around the loose desk leg. Now all she had to do was untie herself.

There was another desk in the room. She made her way to it, searching with her eyes. If Vincent heard her, would he come back? She didn't know, which meant she also had no time. Frantic for anything with a sharp edge, she found a tape dispenser with a bright metal cutter. Turning, she pressed the plastic strip down against it, feeling the bite of the metal teeth against the soft part of her thumb, ignoring it as she rubbed, her hands going slick with blood but eventually the plastic giving way and freeing her hands.

Then the lights flickered. All the electricity around her disappeared, leaving her in a black nothing.

Ok, smart ass, now that you're free, what the hell are you going to do next?

Struggling to hasted the adjustment of her eyes to the dim light, Callie raised her hands in front of her, groping her way to the door. When she found it, she realized that not all the power was out. Dim emergency lights hung in the hallway, and the elevators had to be on a back-up system, because their buttons glowed as if nothing had happened. She pressed the up button, remembering Vincent's last word.

Upstairs.

Where the hell upstairs? There had to be at least a dozen more floors to this building. She had absolutely no clue. But as she stood blinking in the sudden light of the interior of the elevator, she thought to herself, Come on, girl, you're a writer…if you were a prosecutor working in your office this late at night, and you weren't at your desk, where would you be?

She looked down at the buttons. There was a smudge of blood on one of them, the 16. Beside it, carved into the panel, were the words: law library and files.

She pressed the button. The doors slid shut and up she went.